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Getting Started With Bees

By Annemarie Conte April 14, 2009 3:01 pmApril 14, 2009 3:01 pm

Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

(Unlike keeping chickens, beekeeping is one of those domestic activities I’ve never wanted to get into; I thought it was best left to braver souls. I’ve never raised chickens either. But I’m ecstatic that Annemarie and her husband Andy are doing it, and allowing us to track their progress at their home in New Jersey, which Annemarie describes as “very old school Italian-American.” –MB)

Andy and I are getting our bees soon. Before I did any research about beekeeping, I pictured my husband and I with more honey than we’d ever know what to do with. I’d make torrone (the Italian nougat candy that was a Christmas staple of my childhood), we’d have gifts for friends and we’d get to sell some of the stuff to boot — delicious, golden money. Now, after taking a beekeeping workshop, I realize why honey sells for $5 a pound and up. It’s hard work. And, as first-time beekeepers, there is no guarantee we’ll get any honey this season at all.

It all started last fall, when Andy was planting bulbs in our front yard and we began to plot out the back garden. We know the bees will help pollinate our little section of vegetables and up to five miles worth of our neighbors’, and Colony Collapse Disorder — where bees just disappear for no apparent reason — hasn’t seemed to have affected our area yet. So now seemed like a good time to give it a try.

How can you even get bees?

There are a few ways.

You can order them from beekeeping companies like Draper’s Super Bee Apiaries and have them delivered — in the mail. Yes, the U.S. Postal Service will deliver a box filled with worker bees and a queen. Called a package and sold for about $70, the queen is trapped in a small box capped with fondant and it’s the workers’ job to free her. Once you set them up in your hive boxes, they begin settling in, getting their new house ready by building wax and comb. This process is slow. Think of this as moving into an unfurnished apartment and having to build your own furniture.

Or, you can get some from someone who raises bees. There are numerous local beekeeping societies; the one in New Jersey, for instance, has links to local societies. In your local society you can find someone who is selling bees — queen, workers and babies — as a nucleus, with the comb built out a bit (prices in the New York area are around $100). The bees have already gotten things going, so this process is a little faster. The apartment is furnished, but it’s with hand-me-downs.

Or, you can buy an established hive. The queen, workers and babies are already going full-tilt. Costing about $125, it’s the most likely way for a first-year beekeeper to get honey. (Each hive can produce around 60 pounds of honey.) Does it seem like cheating? Maybe. But who can turn down an apartment that’s already loaded with heirloom pieces?

Having sunk about a thousand dollars into this project, it’s definitely not the best get-rich-quick scheme I’ve ever come up with, but it should be interesting. I’ll update you as the season progresses, and I’ll be exploring lots of great honey recipes in coming months (ice cream, baklava, barbecue sauce), whether it’s with my own bees’ honey or someone else’s.

Awesome! But you know, you can also get bees for free by catching a swarm. I saw five swarms in my neighborhood last year, and that’s what got me interested in keeping some. I’ve got my swarm-catching box ready to go, and the hive is being built from scrap lumber. Any day now! Here are some pictures of the swarm box and last year’s swarms.

My wife keeps bees, and is past president of the Morris County (NJ) Beekeepers’ Association. It’s an interesting hobby, but in the 7-8 years she’s been doing it, we’ve only harvested about 15 pounds of honey. It sure is good, though–and we’re helping local gardeners and farmers with pollination.

Good luck. I grew up on a honey farm with thousands of colonies of bees. My father and uncle were second generation professional beekeepers. I’m an avid vegetable gardener, but I will never, ever raise my own bees. I know how to do it, and I could get the equipment for free from my family. I agree with Will: “It’s an interesting hobby,’ but you really have to know what you’re doing to make it productive. Even with experts, honey production depends heavily on weather and other factors beyond the beekeeper’s control.

Beekeeping is incredibly hard work–hot, sticky, and slightly dangerous. I hope that you’re up to the challenge. If you are, enjoy the honey straight from the comb. There’s nothing quite like it.

You should check out the New York City Beekeepers association (via google) I recently took their March class on urban beekeeping. It is a lot of fun and the people who run it do it as a passion of love. It convinced me enough to get a hive of my own oneday and to join their association.

That is great that your bees are doing well. But i wonder, the problem about Colony Collapse Disorder is not affecting you guys, then does it still affect other people in other states? Or did the whole problem of (CCD) been solve already?

My husband recently relocated a colony of bees, with the help of a 4-year veteran beekeeper, from the box containing the electrical in our pop-up camper into a hive. It certainly was hot and sticky work. (I watched.) Being unsure whether we had captured the queen, we purchased one from a “local” and introduced her to the colony. We’re now waiting to see if the workers accepted her, or if they are making a new queen themselves. It’s not something I would ever have thought about wanting to do, but I find myself strangely attracted to these docile little creatures. Our “mentor” extracted 15 pounds of honey from the comb taken out of the camper and yes, it is really really good. We live in a Central Fla. neighborhood, so we’re hoping to have a thriving colony producing lots of yummy honey.

This is wonderful to read. It’s people like you all who are really helping our planet by keeping these bees. I was completely in the dark about the issue until I read a New Yorker article last year – or maybe two years ago.

I would love to start urban beekeeping down here in Washington, DC though knowing the way these politicians over-react to everything, I’m sure they would somehow find that it’s a security threat.

#4 Medina: I don’t know what Andy and Anne Marie bought, but it could include such things as: the hive boxes, the foundation combs, hive tools (such as smoker), bee suit etc – maybe even an electric fence depending where they live (racoons love to eat the bees, bears the honey…). Plus most people get a few colonies (colony means the “bees”, hive means “the box housing the bees”, by the way, in beekeeper lingo).

I’m sitting with three supers ladened with honey and nary a honey bee in sight. I’ve had to put tanglefoot around the hive to keep the ants out in the meantime. There’s something eerie and sad about dessertion or absence among such abundance.

Just off a country road , not nearly in deepest, darkest Kentucky, lives an elderly beekeeper named Ulysses Key. He has been keeping bees for many decades, both before his retirement and now, many years thereafter. He credits the trade with insuring his longevity and regards the honey, that he consumes daily, as a medicine. He never subjects his honey to heat. When I inquired of him about the integrity of his colonies, he shook his head sadly. There is a steady die-off underway. The dying bees travel in an uncertain pattern, which ends in a spin that he traced with his hand on thin air. Then they drop down dead.

we started a hive here in chicago last year, and since we’ll be leaving the windy city behind for indianapolis in only a few short weeks, we’ll leave that one behind with friends and have a new hive and bees delivered not long after moving in down there. both times we’ve managed to get a hive kit and bees and all the other little things needed for less than $350. sure, there will be future costs for jars and such come time to harvest, but there are ways to avoid spending so much, i’ve found. and the worst thing that can happen after spending all of this money up front is that you’ll have to purchase more bees the next year. the rest isn’t a recurring expense.